The above was done by a shop where I live in the East Bay, CA. I thought it was a pretty clean, sensible mod to allow access to the torsion bars on these cars.

 

I'm confused how these would help. Wouldn't you still have to remove the spring plate anyway to get the torsion bars out? Maybe I'm missing something.

 

I sure hope I wouldn't have to remove them completely. That would make this modification pointless! The larger of the two splined ends fits into the spring plate, so the torsion bar should come right out if it can pass through the springplate, which they can. I think this modification is pretty common in the 944 only race classes. Van even discusses it briefly in one of his videos. For super-fast access holes are cut in the rockers so the torsion bars can be withdrawn in minutes, but I won't be doing that. The primary reason I did this mode is to adjust the position after the fact, as I'm just going to assume I won't get it right the first time.

 

Clever!
You only have to pull the bar far enough out to turn the splines (3-4" max), it doesn't have to come all the way out.

 

I like it.

 

In days of yore, when Jag XK 120's,140's and 150's roamed the planet, there was an adjustment mechanism to increase or decrease the amount of torsion to the torsion bars that controlled the ride height as well as the springiness of the torsion bar without having to do more than twist a bolt or two. The XKE changed all that and it was a step backwards I always thought. Seems that this could be applied here to be able to cut down on all the sweat and anger in having to adjust the t-bars, with holes cut, and all the other excercises in futility that result.

The torsion bars on these cars had a lever attached to the end of the torsion bar. This could be adjusted with a stationary bolt which was held captive with a couple of nuts welded to a small plate. As one screwed the bolt down it contacted the lever arm adjusting the torsion on the bar. Seems that this could be adapted to our torsion bars somehow. just some thoughts...

 

Cool, but has a torsion bar "walked out" on anyone?

I raced seasons of 944 spec with no torsion bar cover and the bars never moved laterally in or out.

But, to finish the adjustment easily, one should weld a nut to the end of their torsion bars, like I did a few months ago when redoing rear suspension of my 951. I run it stock height, but will make it easy if someone in future wants to go low.

 

Rich, something like this?


http://www.elephantracing.com/suspen...pringplate.htm

 

Two torsion bars walked out of a bar................

 

I've those-they're nice! And for what they cost they had better be. For some reason they designed such that from then on you have to use 911 bars, which I find odd...You're forced to buy new torsion bars along with the springplates.

 

Yep! That should be enough to do it! If you look back at Tempest's first pic, there are two sliding plates next to one another. Seems that the inner plate could be adjusted with a vertical bolt that would adjust ride height. nuts could be attached to outer plate...maybe I'm lost here...Elephant seems to have engineered a very elegant solution here, though..I don't know if JBugs would have anything like this...maybe for a dune buggy/EMPI?

 

No, I've never seen one walk.

 

I wanted it done this way because it'll be on a daily driver, and subject to rain, dirt, and whatever else I encounter, so I wanted it to be somewhat sealed. I'll run a bead of RTV or something on the inside edge of the cap to keep stuff out.

 

i wonder if one of those rubber plumbing "no hub coupler" caps from home depot would fit the end of the t-bar... maybe a 1-1/2" pipe size (1.9" OD) would fit.
one of these:

 

I've never seen one walk, but there may be one or two instances when they might have shuffled a little bit...LOL!